Introducing… Joy Warner, CLC Planning Group Founding Member
Joy Warner - Founding Member
As a baby I was baptized into the Church of England and attended a Church of England Junior School. Later my parents converted to Christian Science, an American import much favoured by my father's boss.
I went to Grammar School at age 13 where we had morning assembly with hymns and prayers in the Anglican tradition. Only the Catholics didn't have to attend, and I was curious as to why this was so. I didn't think much about religion until I went to university. There I became interested in philosophy and began to question the existentialist writings of Sartre and De Beauvoir which posited that our existence is absurd with no meaning to it. I fell in love with the Romantics, Rousseau, and Goethe. We also studied Freud, Nietzsche and Marx and epistemology. I began to question the existence of God while still feeling a pull towards transcendence. In my third year I spent a year in France and met my husband Gary who was a committed Catholic from birth. I attended mass with him at the student parish and was attracted by the French Catholic families who welcomed us in Caen. On my return to England, I took a course of instruction from the Catholic University Chaplain (Later the Bishop of Birmingham). I remained unconvinced of all the doctrines of the church and only when we came to Canada and met a wonderful Jesuit priest and the welcoming Newman Catholic Student community at McMaster did I decide to enter the church. I was baptized in 1968 at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Hamilton.
From a young age I was incensed with the injustice of the British class system. I was soon involved with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and was inspired when I discovered the Social Teachings of the Church. A few of us students and faculty started a Peace and Justice group at McMaster University and later became involved in sponsoring an Ethiopian Refugee.
All of our children were baptized in the Catholic Church, and we were active in the Christian Family Peace Weekend community in Sharon. In the 1970s a Spiritan priest became Chaplain at McMaster. Gary had been educated by the Spiritans in Trinidad and soon we were invited to join the Lay Spiritans as Associates of the Congregation. This has given us access to retreats with wonderful theologians, days of reflection, a regular prayer life, 20 plus years of monthly home masses, and an international Congregation with members from all over the world. For many years I was the JPIC coordinator for the Spiritans in English speaking Canada. Locally I cofounded Amnesty International Group One and worked as the Co-ordinator for SHAIR (Society for Hamilton and Area International Response.)
Peace and Disarmament have always been my main passion in life. I joined Voice of Women for Peace, serving for several years as National Chair, and attended the World Social Forum in Brazil and the Hague Appeal for Peace in Holland. Meeting activists from around the world who were on the same quest for an end to war, the arms trade, and the wasting of resources on violent conflict, helped consolidate my commitment, leading me to study for a diploma in Alternative Dispute Resolution. The nonviolent witness of Jesus was my main attraction in becoming a Catholic although I still think the church needs to focus more on his life than his death. A favourite sticker on my frig reads “Who would Jesus bomb?”
Concerned Lay Catholics shares my passion for justice for the abused and oppressed people of the world and my desire to challenge clericalism and the unaccountable wielding of power over others in all its guises remains strong.
Being part of an interracial family, living in West Africa for 3 years, with a son who converted to Islam and a daughter who follows Taoism, I am still a Catholic but am increasingly attracted to the Perennial Wisdom tradition of Schuon et al, to Interfaith Dialogue and to Sufism. CLC allows me to enlarge my tent in the way of Pope Francis’ synodal path and for that I am very grateful.